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Author Topic: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.1: Potion cost cards  (Read 50069 times)

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WanderingWinder

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #50 on: May 08, 2012, 08:35:34 am »
0

seems like I stand corrected.
Well, general consensus agrees with you. Because 'oh, moats take care of cursers' IS typically a bad gameplan. Actually probably more because theory doesn't like moat much at all in 2p (it is a BEAST in a lot of multiplayer games).
But I'm dumbfounded when people talk about moat as like one of the 2-3 worst 2-cost cards, because even in 2p, it can be pretty potent against a lot of the strong attacks.

popsofctown

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #51 on: May 08, 2012, 01:04:55 pm »
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On boards where Embargo doesn't have much tactical use it is a pretty bad bane since it doesn't even stick around.

There might not be a truly unbuyable bane but banes that get close to that are where YW approaches Sea Hag.
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blueblimp

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #52 on: May 08, 2012, 01:27:58 pm »
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I had no idea Moat was generally a good buy in 2p attacking games. Somebody please write an article. :)
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #53 on: May 08, 2012, 01:52:32 pm »
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Eh, I'm pretty sure that I still skip YW on boards with unbuyable banes more often than I skip Hag, though obviously the difference is less stark.  I don't think there's a way to separate it out in CR data, so this is more of a gut feeling than anything.

So you think more than half of the time that you skip Young Witch, you don't buy the bane? If you buy the bane more than half the time when you skip YW, then you're skipping both YW AND the bane less than 25% of the time.

Intuitively, it seems to me like it should be easier to trash your way out of Sea Hag than Bad-Bane-Young-Witch.

If you're playing Remake or Steward or Chapel and not buying anything, it doesn't matter all that much that the Curse shows up on top of your deck, because it can't really hurt your buying potential on trashing turns since you're not buying anything anyway. So the Sea Hag attack is no much more effective than the Young Witch attack against that type of strategy (which is the only kind of strategy you really consider skipping the cursers anyway).

The bigger difference I think is that against Sea Hag, you have a lot more time to trash your way out, since the Sea Hag player isn't going to be buying Provinces or ending the game any time soon. But Young Witch is actually a moderately useful card in a deck. It's usually worth like $1 and some cycling. It's much easier to hit $5 on a YW turn than a Sea Hag turn, and you never get stuck at $2.

A simulator example of how much slower Sea Hag is that Young Witch can be seen by pitting Double YW and Double Hag against Double Jack. Young Witch beats Jack by a 2/1 ratio taking an average of under 21 turns. Sea Hag loses to Jack by a 2/1 ratio taking an average of over 24 turns! Now Double Jack isn't an engine, but it's the simplest example of trying to deal with curses by trashing, while making a non-terrible deck.

If you're concerned that there's some special Jack-vs-Hag interaction, then you can also try pitting Young Witch and Sea Hag decks against other simple bots. Both beat BM easily, but Young Witch takes 23 turns to end the game while Sea hag takes 27. Versus Chapel, they take 22 and 25 turns, respectively. Versus Steward 22 and 26. Basically against Sea Hag, you have 3 extra turns to work with, and that can make a big difference when trying to build an engine.

EDIT: Oh another funny one: Mass Lighthouse beats both Sea Hag and Sea Hag+Lighthouse (by a wide margin). That's right. Mass Lighthouse... (naturally it loses worse than 3/1 to any other curser besides Sea Hag and Familiar)
« Last Edit: May 08, 2012, 02:09:34 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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theory

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #54 on: May 08, 2012, 02:15:16 pm »
+1

I think Jack is a bit of an unfair comparison, because Jack is one of the rare instances where Sea Hag's curse-on-top power is a benefit to the Cursee rather than an additional punishment.
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #55 on: May 08, 2012, 02:18:10 pm »
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Eh, I'm pretty sure that I still skip YW on boards with unbuyable banes more often than I skip Hag, though obviously the difference is less stark.  I don't think there's a way to separate it out in CR data, so this is more of a gut feeling than anything.

So you think more than half of the time that you skip Young Witch, you don't buy the bane? If you buy the bane more than half the time when you skip YW, then you're skipping both YW AND the bane less than 25% of the time.

That's not precisely what I meant.  There are going to be some games with banes that are bad as banes but I may buy eventually anyway because they fit an important part in my engine- something like Woodcutter or Black Market, for instance.  If you only can handle one or two of the Banes, and this is the case for mostly all of the terminals, than it's not going to be that effective as a bane even if you buy it. 

Intuitively, it seems to me like it should be easier to trash your way out of Sea Hag than Bad-Bane-Young-Witch.

If you're playing Remake or Steward or Chapel and not buying anything, it doesn't matter all that much that the Curse shows up on top of your deck, because it can't really hurt your buying potential on trashing turns since you're not buying anything anyway. So the Sea Hag attack is no much more effective than the Young Witch attack against that type of strategy (which is the only kind of strategy you really consider skipping the cursers anyway).

Well, sure, if you're lucky enough to have your trashers line up like that.  But it's just as likely that your Steward is in hand when your opponent plays Hag, hitting a "buy something" turn instead; and the chance that Hag will discard your key card from the top of deck is large enough to be a significant factor here as well.

The bigger difference I think is that against Sea Hag, you have a lot more time to trash your way out, since the Sea Hag player isn't going to be buying Provinces or ending the game any time soon. But Young Witch is actually a moderately useful card in a deck. It's usually worth like $1 and some cycling. It's much easier to hit $5 on a YW turn than a Sea Hag turn, and you never get stuck at $2.

A simulator example of how much slower Sea Hag is that Young Witch can be seen by pitting Double YW and Double Hag against Double Jack. Young Witch beats Jack by a 2/1 ratio taking an average of under 21 turns. Sea Hag loses to Jack by a 2/1 ratio taking an average of over 24 turns! Now Double Jack isn't an engine, but it's the simplest example of trying to deal with curses by trashing, while making a non-terrible deck.

If you're concerned that there's some special Jack-vs-Hag interaction, then you can also try pitting Young Witch and Sea Hag decks against other simple bots. Both beat BM easily, but Young Witch takes 23 turns to end the game while Sea hag takes 27. Versus Chapel, they take 22 and 25 turns, respectively. Versus Steward 22 and 26. Basically against Sea Hag, you have 3 extra turns to work with, and that can make a big difference when trying to build an engine.

The fact that Young Witch's cycling is terminal makes it much less useful in my eyes: in many of the sorts of decks where I'd be on the fence about YW, it can be actively harmful.  And sure, Sea Hag gives you more turns to work with, but since it puts the curses in what is normally the single most obnoxious place, you'll need those extra turns.  Obviously any trasher that can deal with the top of the deck isis an exception: Lookout, Jack, and Masq.  Though I'd expect Masq to dominate both YW and Hag to the point where the distinction is academic.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #56 on: May 08, 2012, 02:39:03 pm »
0

I think Jack is a bit of an unfair comparison, because Jack is one of the rare instances where Sea Hag's curse-on-top power is a benefit to the Cursee rather than an additional punishment.
I'm not so sure it's a real benefit. If you get it on top while you hold Jack in hand on early turns you cycle through it, and if you get in draw along with Jack, it's just like with any other trasher.

That's not precisely what I meant.  There are going to be some games with banes that are bad as banes but I may buy eventually anyway because they fit an important part in my engine- something like Woodcutter or Black Market, for instance.  If you only can handle one or two of the Banes, and this is the case for mostly all of the terminals, than it's not going to be that effective as a bane even if you buy it.
OK. So you have a much looser definition of "bad bane" than I do. By "bad", I meant that you're not going to buy it. That somewhat explains our discrepancy regarding Young Witch.

But then there's the issue of Sea Hag...

Quote
Well, sure, if you're lucky enough to have your trashers line up like that.  But it's just as likely that your Steward is in hand when your opponent plays Hag, hitting a "buy something" turn instead; and the chance that Hag will discard your key card from the top of deck is large enough to be a significant factor here as well.
Compared to Young Witch, Sea Hag makes the curses come sooner (because of the top-decking), but slower (because of the lack of cycling). Against money decks, this is clearly a stronger attack, since hitting early is much more painful. Against trashing decks it's probably only slightly stronger. Half the time it gets trashed immediately on a turn you wouldn't buy something anyway, and the rest of the time, since the deck is thin, it doesn't show up that much sooner anyway. If it shows up on your "buy something" turn, it's not the end of the world, since you have 3 "free" turns anyway. It's not like they were able to buy something better on their Hag turn. The Hags are working like Curses to the Hag player. If you see the Curses about the same number of times as they see the Hags, you're in great shape.

Quote
The fact that Young Witch's cycling is terminal makes it much less useful in my eyes: in many of the sorts of decks where I'd be on the fence about YW, it can be actively harmful.  And sure, Sea Hag gives you more turns to work with, but since it puts the curses in what is normally the single most obnoxious place, you'll need those extra turns.  Obviously any trasher that can deal with the top of the deck isis an exception: Lookout, Jack, and Masq.  Though I'd expect Masq to dominate both YW and Hag to the point where the distinction is academic.
The point is not just that you may want to incorporate Young Witch into your engine (though you will far more often than with Sea Hag), but that if you're going to ignore the Young Witch, you have to build your engine fast, since Young Witch BM plays out much faster than Sea Hag BM.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2012, 02:41:46 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #57 on: May 08, 2012, 02:43:59 pm »
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The point is not just that you may want to incorporate Young Witch into your engine (though you will far more often than with Sea Hag), but that if you're going to ignore the Young Witch, you have to build your engine fast, since Young Witch BM plays out much faster than Sea Hag BM.

I agree with all of this; I'm just saying that most of the time you'll be able to build your engine much faster against YW than against Hag.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #58 on: May 08, 2012, 02:46:42 pm »
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The point is not just that you may want to incorporate Young Witch into your engine (though you will far more often than with Sea Hag), but that if you're going to ignore the Young Witch, you have to build your engine fast, since Young Witch BM plays out much faster than Sea Hag BM.

I agree with all of this; I'm just saying that most of the time you'll be able to build your engine much faster against YW than against Hag.

And I'm saying that if you're able to build it fast enough vs YW, you're often able to build it fast enough vs Sea Hag as well (just do the same thing, and if a few of your "buy something" turns get screwed up, you're still ok, since you have 3 extra turns to work with). This is why my original comment was that Sea Hag is skippable more often than you give it credit for. You feel like you can't build an engine fast enough, but really you can, since you have more time.

This is the biggest thing I learned from Young Witch. By seeing how often it's okay to skip Young Witch, I realized that Sea Hag is also not really as much of a "must-buy" as I had previously thought.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2012, 02:50:12 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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popsofctown

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #59 on: May 08, 2012, 02:50:01 pm »
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I think things have escalated enough for some iso grudge matches.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #60 on: May 08, 2012, 02:51:38 pm »
+1

I think things have escalated enough for some iso grudge matches.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or insulting. I'm just trying to share something I think I've learned recently -- that Sea Hag is not as good as I once thought it was.
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #61 on: May 08, 2012, 02:56:15 pm »
+1

This is the biggest thing I learned from Young Witch. By seeing how often it's okay to skip Young Witch, I realized that Sea Hag is also not really as much of a "must-buy" as I had previously thought.

It's funny how these sorts of things happen: reminds me of how it took witnessing the power of JoaT to realize that Bureaucrat was actually good once in a while.
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ecq

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #62 on: May 08, 2012, 03:22:30 pm »
+1

This is the biggest thing I learned from Young Witch. By seeing how often it's okay to skip Young Witch, I realized that Sea Hag is also not really as much of a "must-buy" as I had previously thought.

It's funny how these sorts of things happen: reminds me of how it took witnessing the power of JoaT to realize that Bureaucrat was actually good once in a while.

And Explorer!
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jotheonah

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #63 on: May 08, 2012, 06:01:17 pm »
+2

Kind of hilarious that the potion-cost list thread has not mentioned a potion card in over a page...
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Qvist

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #64 on: May 08, 2012, 06:06:21 pm »
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Kind of hilarious that the potion-cost list thread has not mentioned a potion card in over a page...

Was thinking the same when reading over the past posts in my thread.

So, no big discussion here, nearly everyone agreed with the ranking except maybe that Alchemist is too high and Apothecary a little bit too low. Great!

Ozle

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #65 on: May 08, 2012, 06:18:12 pm »
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And Explorer!

Wait what? I can never find a good kingdom board for Explorer, please elabourate! (in another thread if needs be!)
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Fabian

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #66 on: May 08, 2012, 06:25:30 pm »
+1

Kind of hilarious that the potion-cost list thread has not mentioned a potion card in over a page...

Not like this didn't already happen in the $5 cards thread when we spent ~5 pages discussing Goons vs King's Court ;)
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Eevee

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #67 on: May 08, 2012, 06:40:44 pm »
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And Explorer!

Wait what? I can never find a good kingdom board for Explorer, please elabourate! (in another thread if needs be!)
Explorer is pretty good for big money (on non-colony games) and very good for alt vp strategies. You know, its good when having lots of silver is good.
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popsofctown

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #68 on: May 08, 2012, 07:05:25 pm »
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Explorer is very good for alt-vp strats because it bloats your deck, letting you absorb dukes or roads or gardens better.

And sometimes you just get a board that's so bad the best terminal silver is explorer. 
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popsofctown

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #69 on: May 08, 2012, 07:06:28 pm »
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I think things have escalated enough for some iso grudge matches.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or insulting. I'm just trying to share something I think I've learned recently -- that Sea Hag is not as good as I once thought it was.

I'm trying to incite discord.
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ehunt

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #70 on: May 08, 2012, 07:33:38 pm »
+1

Explorer is a fantastic defense against possession.
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popsofctown

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #71 on: May 08, 2012, 07:37:46 pm »
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Oh yes, that too.  And Bureaucrat too.
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #72 on: May 08, 2012, 07:44:57 pm »
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I know, intellectually, that Explorer can be good in BM-esque setups, but I still never find time to use it.  It sort of feels like a poor man's Trading Post, in that it can be a strong pickup on Turns 1 and 2,  but its utility drops precipitously after that.  Even a turn 3/4 Explorer feels too late, and that's assuming you're in the minority of boards where Explorer isn't contraindicated. 

Explorer/Duke is fantastic, though: even when I thought Explorer was the worst $5 I still knew about this combo.  And Gardens, Silk Roads, and opponents' Possessions give it an extra boost as well.

...

An interesting thought experiment: imagine Explorer at $4.  It would be JoaT-level bonkers.  But at $5 it's pretty clearly in the bottom 5 for its cost.  I think that's a pretty good demonstration of the fact the jump between $4 and $5 is so severe.
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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #73 on: May 08, 2012, 08:27:26 pm »
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i've never simulated a thing but explorer big money has to be a lot better than trading post big money? fwiw i think explorer's a decent pick long after turn 3, same cant be said about trading post unless there is some serious cursing to be dealt with.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): Potion cost cards
« Reply #74 on: May 08, 2012, 08:31:20 pm »
+3

I don't think the utility of Explorer drops nearly as precipitously as Trading Post, largely because Trading Post is *really* good on turns 1-2, but also because it produces $2 no matter what. Once your Estates are gone, TP ceases to produce money. So for TP, timing is really important, but for Explorer, not so much.

There are 3 types of situations where Explorer is good:
1. Strategies with early greening (like Duke or Silk Road). The extra Silvers make the VP cards not hurt as much
2. "DG-type" strategies where you "compress down" and then "expand out". If you can draw your whole deck with actions to spare, Explorer is like a Bag of Gold.
3. Boards with absolutely nothing going on. If there is no engine potential, and no really strong BM cards, Explorer fills in as a decent $5 BM card. It beats doing something like Lab BM...
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